Tag Archives: eurovision

Cookie Fonster Comes to Terms with Eurovision 2024 (Final): The Year of Native-Language Bangers

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Intro Post

< 2024 Semifinals | 2024 Final | 2025 Semifinals >

This is it, everyone—the grand finale of my Eurovision blog post series. Till May 2025 anyway, but that’s a matter for another time. I hope you enjoy reading this post, but I’m not done just yet—I still have a few bonus posts to write!

Introduction

“It’s been quite an eventful Eurovision this year, but hopefully tonight, we’ll bring you the usual beauty, mayhem, madness, and of course male nudity.” Never change, Graham Norton. Never change.

After Joost Klein from the Netherlands got disqualified and the protests against Israel’s participation continued, the final of Eurovision 2024 felt like it could collapse any minute. In the dress rehearsals, some of the contestants (like Ireland’s Bambie Thug) refused to show up, others (like Norway’s Gåte) almost withdrew from the contest, and Slimane from France paused amidst his song to give a speech pleading for peace. This was not a normal Eurovision year at all, but let me tell you… I flew across the ocean to Malmö for Eurovision, so as salty as I was, I did not let the Eurovision drama or my personal drama dent my excitement. I went to a bar in Malmö to watch the grand final with a few friends and really did have a great time there. It was also nice to watch it in the warm indoors, since I had underestimated how much warm clothing I needed to pack.

We should all be very fortunate that this year had such talented hosts to keep fans’ spirits afloat: the queen of Eurovision hosts Petra Mede, and the Swedish-Canadian actress Malin Åkerman. It was the first time a pair of women hosted Eurovision, and the third time Petra was one of the hosts. Another thing that belies this year’s hectic drama are the postcards, which are simplistic in contrast to 2023: they show a map of where each country is, clips from two of each country’s prior Eurovision songs, footage of each participant in their country filmed on cell phones, and finally a dramatized shot of the artist. I feel like this is a very SVT style of doing postcards, since they love their efficiency and minimalism.

In spite of all the protests, Israel’s controversial entry landed fifth place thanks to televoters, and fans don’t agree on how it managed that. France achieved an excellent fourth place with a ballad by a man who sings his heart out, Ukraine landed third place singing in the language they used to be afraid to sing in, then the top two are both particularly special songs. The massive fan favorite “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” earned Croatia their best result in history, a second place. Switzerland won for the first time since 1988 with “The Code”, sung by Nemo Mettler, the first non-binary artist to win Eurovision. In this post, you better get ready for me defending Switzerland’s victory, though I would’ve been equally happy with Croatia taking the prize.

The grand final starts with Sweden’s twice Eurovision contestant Björn Hwifs… sorry, I mean Björn Skifs. Damn sj-sound, I’m still not over how many different spellings it has. Anyway, he performs his famous cover of “Hooked on a Feeling” to open up the contest, then comes the flag parade set to a medley of Swedish international hits in English. It has a more restrained feeling than the flag parade of the last two years, perhaps due to the nasty drama of this year, or perhaps because the contestants, audience, and production crew were all unusually cautious this year.

I should mention that as was the case in 2010 and 2011, viewers were allowed to vote since the first song started. Given Israel’s voting campaign I’m not sure it was a good idea this year, but I’ll get to that later. For now, let’s begin this unusually controversial grand final.

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Cookie Fonster Comes to Terms with Eurovision 2024 (Semifinals): The Best and Worst Year Simultaneously

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Intro Post

< 2023 Final | 2024 Semifinals | 2024 Final >

I’m almost done with this blog post series! I just have the 2024 grand final and then a few bonus posts in mind. Then I don’t know what the hell I’ll do with my time.

Introduction

(The best year of Eurovision was actually 2021, but shh. Let me be dramatic for the sake of this title.)

And so, we’ve finally arrived at the most recent Eurovision contest as of this writing. It was filled with exorbitant amounts of drama, the most drama in… who the hell knows how long? Is it comparable to all the ruckus Italy caused when hosting 1991? The controversies Russia caused hosting 2009, or Azerbaijan in 2012? Or going back further, the quadruple tie of 1969 hosted in Francoist Spain? I’ll save most of my drama ranting for “Hurricane”, the controversial Israeli entry of this year, and try my best to be positive otherwise. Even though one of the biggest fan favorites of the year, “Europapa” from the Netherlands, was disqualified after qualifying from the second semifinal. This didn’t just piss off fans; it also angered the broadcaster AVROTROS who was very excited to share their Eurovision entry and insisted it was unjust to disqualify Joost Klein. And even though Israel insisted on sending a song that they knew would be controversial with zero regard for how other broadcasters or viewers would feel, which caused massive protests and the EBU to bend backwards… I’ll try to be positive anyway.

The usual big three Swedish cities bidded to host Eurovision 2024, plus an outsider: the subarctic city of Örnskoldsvik, which happens to have a nice big arena that has hosted Melodifestivalen heats. The Malmö Arena was the only viable option due to scheduling issues in the other venues, so that’s what SVT went with. It turns out that Malmö was a fitting city to host this year, considering the contest went to the very same arena after the last time Loreen won. It’s also a very modern and polished city that saw tons of growth after the bridge to Copenhagen opened in 1999, and it’s got a really nice network of trains and buses, so it’s well-suited to host Eurovision. But for Israeli fans, Malmö was an unfortunate city to host due to the amount of immigrants who protested against the country’s participation in Eurovision, or for some people, even the country’s existence. This meant that most fans from Israel had to hide all signs of their nationality, including speaking Hebrew, and it’s really sad that they had to do this in the 21st century.

This was the first Eurovision year that I visited in person. It was my first time in Scandinavia and my first time visiting both Denmark and Sweden; lovely countries that I’d be glad to visit again. I wrote a blog post about the trip months ago, but honestly I sugar coated the description a little bit. Not only was I stressed out from all the Eurovision drama, I also got into some really bad personal drama that I won’t elaborate on in public. But… despite everything, I am extremely glad I got to go on this trip. And I promise you this won’t be my last time visiting Eurovision.

Aside from all the drama, Luxembourg came back to Eurovision after last participating in 1993! Romania skipped out, which means this contest had 37 competing countries just like last year. And the semifinals have an exciting change: the Big Five and host country now each perform in the semifinal they can vote in, but still automatically qualify. This is a long overdue change that greatly offsets these countries’ disadvantage, and I’m really happy about it. And after the success of worldwide voting last year, the rest of the world’s voting period was extended to begin 24 hours before each show. I think Australia should have this luxury too.

To twist things up, I will watch the first semifinal with Luxembourgish commentary, then the second with German commentary by Thorsten Schorn, who has a picture of the old commentator in his booth. This will be my first time watching the semis’ TV broadcasts in full, since I watched the first as a rehearsal from the arena, and the second as a live show from the arena. And I will include “Europapa” in this post, not the grand final post.

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My rankings of all Eurovision postcards, 1970 to 2024

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Introduction

Before I get down to reviewing Eurovision 2024, the most recent edition of the contest as of this writing and the most controversial in a long time, I’d like to do something silly for a change. I’m going rank every Eurovision year solely by how good their postcards are. In case you didn’t know, the postcards are the little short films that play before each song starts. They’re meant to introduce the next country and contestant, or just show some nice scenery for the viewer to watch, as the commentator tells us about the next song. Some of them succeed in this purpose, some are really dull, and some are just baffling. They were introduced in 1970 because the show needed to fill time due to so many countries skipping, and they’ve been done most years since. If a year post-1970 has no postcards, it automatically goes into the bottom of this list, or I guess the top since I’ll list them worst to best.

I will include every Eurovision contest starting from 1970 in this list, even if it had only haphazard substitutes for postcards. The only year I won’t include is 2020 because it was canceled of course. Now let’s begin!

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Cookie Fonster Fondly Recalls Eurovision 2023 (Final): A Duel Between Jury and Televote Bait

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Intro Post

< 2023 Semifinals | 2023 Final | 2024 Semifinals >

With the release of this post, I’ve finished my original goal back when I started this blog post series! But now, I have one more year left to review. Be patient for my 2024 posts, OK?

Introduction

Liverpool, England got to host the final of a special edition of Eurovision, the first to be co-hosted by two countries. The presenters consisted of three women, the same ones who hosted the semifinal, plus one man who joined them for the final. We have British actress and TV host Hannah Waddingham (or as I like to call her, the British Petra Mede), British singer Alesha Dixon, Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina, and for the final, the BBC commentator for Eurovision who’s originally from Ireland: Graham Norton. His presence among the hosts parallels Terry Wogan in 1998, the last time Britain hosted. Terry and Graham both alternated between hosting and commentating, because for the Brits, Eurovision wouldn’t be what it is without a sarcastic Irishman in the commentator booth. While Terry Wogan commentated solo in 1998, Graham Norton alternated with one of the semifinal commentators, Mel Giedroyc. I’ll be watching their commentary for the grand final.

The postcards did something special this year: they showcased three landmarks in Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the country about to participate that each had something in common, such as universities, opera houses, or botanical gardens. In the third country, we see the contestant performing an activity of their choice, and oh my god they’re so fun to watch. They’re my favorite Eurovision postcards of all time and I’ll discuss further why they’re so great in the general thoughts.

The final results were a battle between two strong competitors: Sweden’s song that was blatantly designed to be popular, and Finland’s song which naturally became an enormous fan favorite. Sweden won the jury vote with 340 points and Finland won the televote with 376 points, but despite Finland’s bigger televote score, Sweden earned their seventh victory. Finland’s fan favorite got second place, and third place was somehow a girl bop from Israel. I won’t even mention which country got last place. It breaks my heart too much.

Ah yes, I remember the opening film and act with its new arrangement of Stefania! The BBC tricked me into thinking every past contest would be as good as this, god dammit. And the early contests with their orchestral reprises of the last winner tricked me into thinking every contest would open with a lovely rearrangement of the past winner.

That was an absolutely perfect flag parade and intro with the hosts—I stayed engaged all the way through. I love the parade alternating between British pop hits and Ukrainian Eurovision entries—an admission that Eurovision is far more influential to the Ukrainian music industry than to the UK’s, but the British music industry is still nothing to scoff at—and I love the 2023 flag parade in general. And the hosts’ opening is perfect too, I love that they tied it in with an announcement that Luxembourg would return next year. Before too long, we get to the first song of the evening, which is…

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Cookie Fonster Fondly Recalls Eurovision 2023 (Semifinals): The First Year I Watched Live

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Intro Post

< 2022 Final | 2023 Semifinals | 2023 Final >

Let me tell you guys right now: I am absolutely, utterly stoked about reaching Eurovision 2023. I hope you guys are at least half as excited to read my thoughts on it!

Introduction

Well, I’ve finally reached the first Eurovision year I watched live. I started this blog post series just a few weeks after the contest, so you can imagine how impatient I was back then to reach 2023. Now I’m finally at this year, but another year has passed since then and now 2024 is the one I’m impatient to get to. But I’ll cherish this year anyway! I didn’t just watch Eurovision 2023 live when it happened, I also intensively followed the pre-season and memorized everything about all the songs. So I still know most of these songs like the back of my hand. Can you just stop and think about how crazy it is that Eurovision happens every single year (except for 2020)? Most international competitions occur only every two years, or every four years, but Eurovision still manages to be an annual event. That’s pretty awesome if you ask me.

After Ukraine won Eurovision 2022, the EBU faced a dilemma: should Eurovision 2023 be hosted in Ukraine, or in a different country in case the war doesn’t end? On June 17, 2022, they confirmed Ukraine wouldn’t be able to host the contest. Ukrainians were initially unhappy with the decision, but then on July 25, the EBU decided to host the contest in the United Kingdom, and Ukraine was on board with that. This was the UK’s reward for scoring second place, and their first time hosting Eurovision since 1998. It was also the ninth time the UK hosted Eurovision, and the first time the previous winner didn’t host since 1980. I’m glad we’re now in an era where every country is willing to host Eurovision after victory. Ukraine was just unable to because of the war, but they did lend a hand to help the BBC put this show together.

Cities in all four parts of the United Kingdom expressed interest in hosting Eurovision, and the winner was Liverpool, announced as the host city on October 7. It’s a city famed for its musical heritage, known for being the hometown of the Beatles and many other famous British musical acts, so what better place is there to host the world’s biggest music show? British fans were absolutely delighted to have Eurovision back in their country—I know because I met some of them in Malmö and they talked about how great it was. Since the UK has tons and tons of people, it was famously difficult to get tickets this year. Everyone I’ve heard of who saw the contest live said it was absolutely worth it.

This contest featured most of the same countries participating in 2022, but three skipped out: Bulgaria, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. This meant that the map of Europe had even more holes than last time, but we’ll make do with the countries that are there. We have a relatively small lineup of 37 countries, and thus only eleven non-qualifiers to go through.

I should also mention that this contest features two important changes to the voting. First off is that the semifinals are now televote-only, which I think is an excellent change. It gives more power to the people without messing with number ratios or the twelve points system. The second is exciting for me: viewers from the rest of the world can now vote in Eurovision! The contest has now embraced that people love it around the world—mainly in the US and Canada, Europe, Israel, and Australia, but it has scattered fans from many other corners of the world. Viewers in non-participating countries have the perk of being able to vote in both semifinals, and my European friends are jealous of me for that.

I had already written a short post reviewing Eurovision 2023, but I had always intended to write a full-length review of the year, and now the time has come! I had suspected that by this point, I’d write sprawling detailed paragraphs about every song, and I was right. I will watch the semifinals with German commentary, which I could have done back in 2023 without needing a VPN, but I didn’t know that at the time. This was Peter Urban’s final year commentating Eurovision. He has done this every year since 1997 except 2009, props to him for sticking around this long!

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Cookie Fonster’s Verdicts on Eurovision 2022 (Final): The Year of Moody Guitar Songs

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Intro Post

< 2022 Semifinals | 2022 Final | 2023 Semifinals >

I woke up early to finish this post because it’s nice to get this out of the way before my work day starts. After this post, I only have four left till I finish this project! Thanks to all my commenters for sticking around all this time. And don’t worry, I have a few bonus posts in mind once I finish 2024.

Introduction

Because the winner last time was a Big Five country, the grand final of Eurovision 2022 featured 25 countries instead of the usual 26. These countries all competed for the prize in Turin, Italy, and due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many fans saw it as a foregone conclusion that Ukraine would win, and that’s indeed what happened. They overwhelmingly won the televote with the second native-language winner in a row. The jury winner was the United Kingdom who got, after so many years of terrible results, a jaw-dropping second place. Their best ever result since 1998! Spain achieved a just as amazing third place, their best ever result since 1995, meaning that two Big Five countries had their redemption arcs this year. In fact, I was originally going to call this post “The British Redemption Arc” before I chose a title reflective of the other songs this year.

After a bunch of opening acts I don’t care much about, we finally have a flag parade as it should be: all the contestants walk on the stage waving their flags! I love seeing each of them carry their flags in a different way with a different style: some go big, some go modest, some mix in rainbow or transgender flags. I also love seeing the United Kingdom, for once, getting some of the biggest cheers in the crowd. I’m still not a big fan of these hosts, but I do love Laura Pausini’s sparkly blue suit. Maybe I just have a thing for sparkly clothes, and I never unlocked this taste till I watched Eurovision?

The postcards feature a drone robot named Leo (introduced in the opening film of semifinal 1) showing the viewers a tour of Italy, with images of the contestants projected onto the buildings. I’m not a big fan of these postcards because they show too much of Italy (lovely country though; it’s a tourist destination for good reason) and not enough of the contestants. One of many ways the production doesn’t live up to 2021.

I watched the grand final with British commentary, done by Eurovision veteran Graham Norton. I find that the more years someone has commentated Eurovision, the more entertaining their commentary gets.

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Cookie Fonster’s Verdicts on Eurovision 2022 (Semifinals): Two Completely Undeserved Last Places

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Intro Post

< 2021 Final | 2022 Semifinals | 2022 Final >

Introduction

The third most recent Eurovision Song Contest as of this writing was Italy’s chance to redeem themselves after their infamously bad hosting of 1991, but spoiler alert: their hosting efforts are mediocre at best. During the host city selection, RAI already ran into tons of troubles. Seventeen cities expressed interest in bidding, eleven cities bidded to host, five were shortlisted, and it was not until October 8, 2021 that Turin was chosen as the host city. That is far too late if you ask me. The host city was supposed to be revealed by the end of August, but I’m willing to bet RAI procrastinated on making the final choice.

This year had 40 countries participating, a number that I really hope Eurovision reaches again. Armenia and Montenegro returned after skipping 2021, and all the 2021 participant countries were going to return at first… until February 24, 2022, when Russia began their invasion of Ukraine. The EBU was originally going to keep Russia in the contest, but after multiple broadcasters threatened to leave the contest, Russia was banned the next day. On February 26, Channel One and VGTRK—the two Russian broadcasters who took turns picking their Eurovision entry—both left the EBU. Russia has been banned from Eurovision, and many other international competitions, ever since.

This contest had a few returns to normalcy we didn’t see in Eurovision 2021: the arena had full capacity and standing seats were available again. No contestants had to stay home, but all countries did record live on tape performances as backup; they also did that in 2021, which is what Australia had to use then. Unlike Eurovision 2021, the audience had to wear face masks at all times, but that wasn’t enforced too heavily. This makes me wonder what Eurovision 2021 would’ve looked like if Italy had hosted. Would a live audience have been possible there? I doubt it, considering Italy was one of the countries hit hardest by COVID.

I’ve already heard all the entries of 2022 (since about a year ago I believe), so it’ll feel a bit strange to review these without hearing anything unfamiliar. I’ve never seen the contest in full before, and as usual, I’ll watch the semifinals with German commentary.

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Cookie Fonster Revels in Eurovision 2021 (Final): A Native-Language Top Three

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Intro Post

< 2021 Semfinals | 2021 Final | 2022 Semifinals >

Holy shit you guys, I can’t believe 2022 is the next Eurovision year for me to review. That was actually the most recent year of the contest when I became a fan.

Also, a day after finishing the post, I ranked Eurovision 2021!

Introduction

“We’ve got a real range of music tonight. Brilliant staging, great lighting, some wonderful vocalists, and others… well, some as flat as Holland.” My god, I fucking love Graham Norton so much.

The grand final of Eurovision 2021, hosted in Rotterdam, Netherlands, featured the usual 26 competitors vying for the crown—16 veterans and 10 newcomers, meaning that a little over half had competed in 2020.

The contest had a quartet of hosts, each of whom comes from a different background. Chantal Janzen is the usual TV host hired to host Eurovision, which is a smart choice as long as they’re fluent in English and French, which she is.* Jan Smit is another TV host and singer who has co-commentated Eurovision for the Netherlands from 2011 to 2019 and 2022 to 2023. Edsilia Rombley has competed in Eurovision twice: she sang for the Netherlands in 1998 and 2007 and also has experience as a television presenter. And finally, Nikkie de Jager is a beauty YouTuber and makeup artist who had dreamed for many years of hosting Eurovision. She was originally going to be an online host for 2020, but this year she was promoted to an in-person host.

The postcards are probably the part of the contest where the influence of COVID-19 is most notable. They feature the usual tour of different places in the Netherlands (always welcome by me) and don’t feature the contestants in person, but rather feature a digitally generated house with objects relevant to the artist and photos/videos of the singer, then a brief hologram of the artist.

As the title of this post suggests, the top three songs of this year are all not in English. Italy scored their third Eurovision win (first since 1990), France scored second place (their best result since 1991), and Switzerland third (best since 1993)—highest of all the returning artists from 2020. While Italy and France did very well, the rest of the Big Five and host rounded out the bottom four and each scored zero points in the televote. The United Kingdom infamously scored zero points in total, the first time that has ever happened in the jury + televote system.

The flag parade was loads of fun—when was the last time the opening featured the hosts singing? Brings back memories of all the hosts from 1985 to 1987 singing… and not so good memories of the 1991 hosts singing. This might also be the first opening act to feature a fire/desire rhyme. Most contestants didn’t hold a flag of their countries, but Stefania waved quite a big Greek flag. She actually lives in the Netherlands, but clearly she’s proud of her Greek roots, as Greeks abroad tend to be.

I watched the grand final with British commentary, as per usual. I wonder how Graham Norton will react to James Newman getting zero points?

* Chantal can also speak German and does it very well! She sounds near indistinguishable from a native speaker.

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Cookie Fonster Revels in Eurovision 2021 (Semifinals): A Heartwarming Show, but a Heartbreaking Bloodbath

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Intro Post

< 2020 Semifinal 2 | 2021 Semifinals | 2021 Final >

Introduction

Some international annual events had to be canceled for two or three years in a row due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so we’re very fortunate that Eurovision only missed one year and maintained its host city of Rotterdam, Netherlands for 2021. The producers of Eurovision 2021 ensured the contest complied with all COVID-19 regulations, but cleverly disguised the fact that it occurred during a pandemic.

It feels strange to watch clips from the 2020 (actually 2021) Summer Olympics with almost no live audience, so it’s miraculous that the EBU put together a live audience for 2021. They did so by allowing only 3,500 seats in the Rotterdam Ahoy, about a third of the usual amount, and not allowing any standing seats—the space was instead used for a socially distanced green room. The audience members didn’t have to wear masks or sit two meters apart—they only had to test negative for COVID and wear masks when not seated. The audience consisted only of those who had bought tickets for Eurovision 2020, so there were no public ticket sales this year. One change that the pandemic did cause was that backing vocals could now be pre-recorded. It’s a bit of a divisive rule, but as we’ll see in quite a few songs this year, it’ll allow for a new layer of creative freedom.

All countries that would have participated in 2020 returned for 2021, except for Belarus who was banned due to sending a propaganda song, and Armenia who skipped out due to a war with Azerbaijan. Out of these 39 countries, 24 of them internally selected the same artist as 2020, two (Estonia and Lithuania) held a national final where the 2020 contestant won, and 13 selected an entirely new contestant. This means that exactly two-thirds of the entries this year have the same artist as 2020.

The running order for both semifinals looks pretty similar to the 2020 semifinals. The draws of who gets into which semifinal, and who is in which half, were reused from 2020, but the countries were reordered for the sake of the show. This means each semifinal will consist of the same countries as its 2020 counterpart (barring the ones that dropped out), but not always the same singers.

As of this writing, I’ve heard in full almost all Eurovision entries from 1956 to 2024, except for these countries’ entries this year: Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Georgia, North Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia, and Sweden. By the time I finish this post, I will have heard every single song in Eurovision history.

I watched the semifinals with German commentary by an increasingly raspy Peter Urban, who by this point I’ve warmed up to. I find his style of commentary to be deadpan in an endearing old man way. In case you were wondering, I’m back to watching these contests alone. If you’d like to know more about how I find commentary for recent contests, or would like me to send video files I have available, there are multiple ways to contact me listed on my home page. I’m open to helping you out!

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Cookie Fonster Speculates on Eurovision 2020 (Semifinal 2): Would Iceland Have Won?

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Intro Post

< 2020 Semifinal 1 | 2020 Semifinal 2 | 2021 Semifinals >

Introduction

In this post I go through the other 21 songs of Eurovision 2020, the contest that was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes the 18 songs that would’ve competed in semifinal 2, and the three automatic qualifiers who would’ve voted here: France, the UK, and Spain. This will be a way weaker lineup of songs than semifinal 1, but it also contains the song that most fans believe would’ve won 2020: “Think About Things” from Iceland.

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